Photo Albums

July 05, 2006

Another Threadless submission. This one is based on a weird vision of a Mariachi walking the streets of Tokyo that popped into my head just as I was waking up one morning. An interesting side note: the word "Mariachi" can be translated perfectly into Japanese with no change in pronunciation.

February 12, 2005

Akira Toriyama (The artist behind Dragon Ball Z, Crono Trigger, and the Dragon Warrior series, in case you stumbled across this site by accident) has designed this goofy little electric car that is being sold in Japan. It is available in several different colors. Toriyama has always been known for his detailed drawings of invented vehicles, so it’s only natural for him to do something like this. The only thing that would make it more authentic is if it hovered along with no obvious means of locomotion. :)

January 17, 2005

I love Japanese pop culture. The weirder and less comprehensible by rational human beings it is, the better. That’s why Katamari Damacy for the PS2 has such a special place in my heart. This game is closer to the absurdity of a real life “Mr. Sparkle” ad than anything I’ve ever seen. That, and it’s a lot of fun to play.

You’re the 2cm tall prince of all creation. Your father is the incredibly huge King of all creation. He got drunk, fell asleep, or something (he never admits exactly what happened), and accidentally destroyed every star in the sky. Now it’s your job to visit Earth and roll stuff up on your katamari – a ball that literally anything sticks to – and then return it to your father so that he can make stars or constellations out of all the stuff. The quality of the result is dependent on the size of your katamari and the time you took to make it.

The controls are simple: In army tank style, you use both analog sticks to steer your katamari around the world. You can roll up anything smaller than the ball’s circumference. In the beginning you roll around on a tabletop, picking up tacks, erasers, soy sauce packets, etc. Quickly you move to mice, cell phones, cassette tapes, and so on. Later you can venture outside picking up people, pets, signs, fences, you name it. By the end of the game you are rolling around the ocean picking up islands, ocean-liners, amusement parks, and basically anything else you bump into. The seamless way that the game scales down the environment as your katamari grows larger is quite impressive.

Back on the prince’s tiny planet you keep a log of every one of the hundreds of different types of items you have collected. They are sorted either by type or by size. Some are labeled rare, and others have proper names (certain people you were lucky enough to roll up, for example).

Most stages have a time limit to create a katamari of a certain size, but other stages have specific goals for creating a constellation. For example, to create the constellation Cancer you must roll up as many crabs as you can. To create Virgo you must roll up pretty girls. Cygnus requires swans. You get the picture.

The excellent Japanese soundtrack has remained completely intact in the American version, and is pretty diverse. Once you finish the game you can access a menu that allows you to hear all of the music and watch all of the cut scenes at your leisure, which is cool.

Interspersed between stages are short hand painted animations that unveil a nonsensical story featuring two Japanese kids traveling with their mother to watch their father take off in a rocket to the moon. Whether intentional or not, these are hilarious.

This game was released in the US at an amazingly low $19.95 price point. If you own a PS2 and are even slightly intrigued by what you’ve read here, I highly recommend you pick it up.

July 22, 2004

Check out this story on CNN.com. Apparently a guy on a Russian flight complained that the flight attendants were drunk, so they beat him up. Other passengers reported that most of the food the attendants were trying to serve ended up on the floor.

All I’ve got to say is how lucky can you get!?! Can you imagine being beaten up by flight attendants? I’d be smiling and laughing the whole time thinking “Man! This airline is going to pay me so much money.” It’d be like winning the lottery!

June 07, 2004

Well, I just returned from our annual weekend excursion to the Project: A-Kon Anime Convention in Dallas, Texas. This year marks the ninth consecutive year I have attended. As usual, I hardly participated in any actual convention events. I consider myself more of a convention tourist. I take photos of the freakish natives and crowd into elevators filled with all types of unwashed nerd BO.

Here are some of the most common aspects of the con-going archetype I have noted in my years of observation:

* They cannot resist the urge to speak randomly to complete strangers about things the strangers know nothing of and care nothing about.

* If given a small amount of authority by the convention organizers, they thrive on this power and become an incredibly annoying sort of Nerd Gestapo.

* The bigger the girl, the smaller the costume.

I'll stop there and save the rest for my eventual book about the con-freak phenomenon.

You might be wondering, if I'm so turned off by these people, why do I go to anime conventions? My wife and I go to anime conventions to buy cool stuff and to learn about new anime. Yes, we do love Japanese cartoons, but we still manage to function as relatively normal human beings. It's also just a good excuse to spend a weekend in the Dallas area each summer.

May 20, 2004

This advertisement caught my eye as I was reading a story on CNN.com about how the Chandra Space Telescope has uncovered evidence that the universe's expansion is actually accelerating, and how they're "unlocking the mystery of 'Dark Energy'". Maybe if NASA is really serious about studying the mystery of "Dark Energy" they should buy some from GrowStuffPlus.com and read the label. Just don't touch the Concentrated Evil.

Favorite Books

Ravi Zacharias: Can Man Live Without God?An amazing book that makes the case for God not by citing the Bible or great theologians, but by analyzing the philosophies of famous atheists and showing their flaws.

C. S. Lewis: Mere ChristianityC.S. Lewis was an atheist for much of his life. Appropriately, this book makes the case for the existance of God first and Christianity second with carefully outlined and surprisingly simple reasoning. I consider this required reading for anyone searching for meaning.

C. S. Lewis: Space TrilogyReligious Sci-Fi Fantasy: A very tiny genre. In "Out of the Silent Planet", "Perelandra", and "That Hiddeous Strength", C.S. Lewis manages to tackle difficult theological questions as we follow Dr. Ransom in his adventures on Mars, Venus, and back on Earth. My favorite science fiction series by far.